Just venting...

Okay. I've been sick all week. I woke up with a sore throat last Thursday and continued to feel sick on Friday. I thought I was well enough Saturday to swim at a meet last weekend. I felt fine on Saturday, but when I came back on the second day of the meet and swam on Sunday, I started losing my voice. My voice was completely gone on Monday, and it didn't start coming back until Wednesday. Last night I finally felt well enough to go to swim practice. I got a wonderful welcome back.

Right after the warm-up set, the coach had us all gather in one lane at the far right side of the pool so that he could talk to us. He started off talking about a meeting that would take place for all members of the team planning to go to a swim meet in Indiana next weekend. (I'm not going to this meet- I don't feel like traveling to the next state over just to swim). He said a couple things about this meet, and then he started talking about team T-Shirts.

At this point, I was only maybe half paying attention. My mind was wandering between many random things such as what the coach was going to give us for our next set, and what I would do on my three day weekend (I got the day off from school today. Wahoo!). Then the coach said something about a person on the team deliberately leaving someone's name off of the Team T-Shirts.

Of course you know where this discussion is going. Why else would I bring this incident up? Apparently, someone on the team thought it would be a wonderful idea to leave my name off the team T-Shirts. I don't know who exactly decided to leave my name off. All I know is that the action was deliberate. I knew this by the way the coach was yelling, saying things like "We don't exclude anyone from this team!”

I didn't find out that I was the person left off the T-Shirts until almost the very end of the coach's speech. I heard him say something at the beginning of the speech like "Why would you exclude Amy from the list". I thought I was mishearing things though until towards the end of the speech, he stated this question again.

The second time the coach said my name in reference to this act, the words struck me like a blow to the stomach. It was all I could do not to burst out into tears right in the middle of swim practice. Apparently the people who excluded me from being on the T-Shirt don't feel like I'm good enough to be part of the team.
I know that I am a terrible swimmer: I am the slowest swimmer in the slowest lane. I get lapped every 200 yards by all the other swimmers in my lane- most still in middle school. Sometimes in practice, the coach will make separate intervals for me because I am too slow to keep up with the rest of the team.

I have frequently felt like I didn't belong on this team. My parents pay the same annual fee for me to swim on this team as any other team member's parents. I go to practice just as often and work just as hard as anyone else on the team- yet I never feel like I belong there.

It's mostly the frustrating feeling I feel when everyone in my lane laps me 5 or more times during a 1000 yard set. It's the feeling I get when no matter how hard I work, I can never place better than last at any swim meet I "compete" in. It's the feeling I get when I do a swim event such as the mile and finish 6 minutes behind the second to last person. It's the feeling I get when I have (according to my training log) devoted over 240 hours of my life-this year alone- to swimming and realize I am still as terrible of a swimmer as the day I started this sport.

This feeling is incredibly frustrating to say the least. That is what made my running victory I mentioned in the last post so amazing- I was actually able to work hard, improve, and get a respectable time that puts me in the middle of the pack.

So now you know why not being good enough to even get my name on a T-Shirt is such a crushing blow. I already feel like I am not good enough to belong on the team; however I thought this belief was like one of those irrational beliefs I had as a little kid, where if I didn't sleep with a nightlight, monsters would come and eat me. (I actually didn't believe that- I'm just using it as an example).

Don't get me wrong. Most of the people on my swim team are VERY supportive and nice to me. A couple of them approached me after the coach's lecture and said how bad they felt that someone would try and do that to me. Like I said, I don't know who exactly on my team would do that. It was probably someone I don't know very well (obviously!).

I have just been getting SO frustrated with the sport of swimming during the past few months. I am mad that I put this much dedication and hard work into something, yet still never improve and end up being so far behind everyone else. Every day, I think about how great it would be to quit the swim team and focus on my running- a sport where hard work and dedication actually pays off.

...Maybe if I did track and cross-country, I wouldn't be the joke of the team anymore. I might actually be good at those sports.

I do have dreams of making varsity cross country next year. If I can train hard and get my 5K time under 22:00, I definitely have a shot at making varsity cross-country. I have no idea what I would have to do to make varsity track. I'm going to train hard all winter though. I'm going to get my mileage up to at least 30-40 a week this winter. I am going to start adding speed work in the spring. I will further increase my mileage to maybe 50 this summer. I will put my heart and soul into running and I will ACHIEVE something.

The odd thing about my frustration with swimming is that though I am really starting to hate swimming, I love it at the same time. I love getting in the pool every night. I love the feeling of water against my skin; I love the smell of chlorine. I love the electrical feeling in the air at a swim meet. I love PR'ing in a swim meet- even if only by a few seconds. I love the calming monotony while doing long distance sets that almost lulls me to sleep, yet keeps me so awake at the same time. I love swimming IMs. I love the feeling of a heated pool in the middle of winter.

No. I am not ready to give up swimming just yet. I am just SO incredibly frustrated right now!

Yes. I did still end up getting my name on the back of the T-Shirt.

And no. You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to wear that stupid shirt!